“There is no way to describe this.”
Enormous fountains of fire were rising in front of us, then falling back into the darkness, over and over again. I was sitting in the front seat of a helicopter, a mere insect hovering above the red-hot torrent of lava, watching what turned out to be the beginning of the unpronounceable Eyjafjallajökull eruption in March 2010.
I put down my notebook. My scribbles were pointless; I had no words in my journalist’s vocabulary to describe the power, beauty and sheer fearsomeness of the eruption.
And yet I tried, on the national channel RÚV, to tell my viewers about the outbreak, to bring the spectacle to their living rooms, climbing mountains, wading ash and, insanely, flying low over the glowing lava to get the footage. But at this moment, sitting in that helicopter, it dawned on me that I didn’t have the words to express it all.
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Years later, I found those words, and wrote my third novel, The Fires, about the volcanoes of Iceland and the people who love them. As it turned out, fiction found a way where reporting failed me. It even predicted a volcanic outbreak four months later.
When Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010, we thought all was lost. Iceland was in economic and moral shambles after the collapse of our banking system in 2008, which cost thousands of Europeans their life savings in the criminally mismanaged Icelandic banks, and now a volcanic outbreak was adding insult to injury, pumping ash into the stratosphere, closing the airways over the Atlantic Ocean, isolating us on our damp, gloomy island and making everyone hate us even more.
But we were wrong. The eruption sparked an enormous interest in Iceland, turning the country into one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, and creating the foundations of Iceland’s most important industry.
In March 2021, the Fagradalsfjall volcano did the same, but in a much tidier way. No flight-disturbing ash cloud this time, only a clean fissure in an abandoned pasture, conveniently close to our capital and international airport, gracefully ejecting photogenic fountains and cascades of lava for a mesmerised crowd of spectators from all over the world.
It turned out to be a nice volcano. They’re not all like that.
Throughout Icelandic history, volcanoes were terrible, sleeping monsters that erupted once in a while, spewing ash and lava over the country, killing people and animals, destroying homes and causing famines. Today, thanks to science, we know much more about volcanoes, we understand why they erupt, and our brilliant geoscientists can warn us before they go off. And we have grown to love our volcanoes, naming our children after them, like beloved, slightly unbalanced great-aunts.
One of the most popular girl’s names in Iceland today is Hekla.
Doomsday in the vastness of her crown.
On her brow danger and splendour.
On the land in a flash her sword crashes down.
Pastures and farms laid waste in flaming cascade.
Iceland’s burning heart beats within her.
There is a strong tradition of volcanic literature in Iceland, not least from nationalist and Neo-Romantic poets like Einar Benediktsson (1864-1940) in his ode to Hekla, here in Larissa Kyzer’s excellent translation. Volcanoes became an important part of Icelandic national identity – we began to see ourselves as a heroic, hardy race fit for the challenges of our impetuous fatherland. (Much of this national identity remains in Iceland, although most people’s only contact with volcanic activity today is the luxury of having our homes and swimming pools comfortably heated with cheap, abundant geothermal energy.) In recent years, we have also seen a rise in volcanic fiction, mostly historical novels, written by men. Women haven’t contributed as much to the genre, until now.
As a journalist, I have always covered volcanoes. I love that part of my job, the danger and excitement, gathering the scientific facts and dramatic footage, getting people out of harm’s way. A few years ago the idea occurred to me to go back to the volcano, exploring it from a different angle this time, through the lens of the novel. Sleeping volcanoes and their eruptions became powerful metaphors: for an emotional and erotic awakening, for the hidden power of the female body, for birth, for the constant battle between our intellect and our urges, for the cataclysmic and formidable power of love.
This time I found the words I needed. I sought inspiration in poetry, on one hand, and in scientific sources, on the other. There is a wonderful culture of storytelling and crisp and imaginative writing in the Icelandic geoscientific community, and I felt that I had hit a goldmine talking to scientists, getting their stories and reading their texts.
In November 2020, The Fires came out in Iceland, telling the tale of a geoscientist, who has to deal with the biggest professional challenge of her life when a series of eruptions break out in an area close to Reykjavík, Iceland’s capital. In addition, she suffers the calamity of falling in love with a stranger, destroying her seemingly perfect marriage and self-identity as a rational, unsentimental human being.
But the ground was shaking, and in March 2021, not four months after The Fires were published, an eruption broke out in Fagradalsfjall after an 800-year hiatus, only a few days and a few kilometres away from the site of the eruptions in The Fires. I have no explanation for this coincidence, except this: books sometimes know much more than the people who write them.
I’m glad that the Fagradalsfjall eruption in 2021, as well as its smaller sibling in August 2022, turned out to be two of the nice ones. The eruptions in The Fires definitely aren’t.
And who knows what Iceland’s next eruption – in reality – will bring us? We have a team of geoscientists, police and rescue squads on constant alert to protect us from volcanic outbreaks, but when it comes to finding the words to describe them, we may have to bring in the poets.
The Fires by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir is out now from Amazon Crossing
